Follow Me
by Jehilew
Summary: It's been a while since Antarctica, and Remy meets up with Rogue on friendly terms and drinks. You know how they are, so you know how this will go.


**This is a fic request made by the lovely Bustedflipflop like...I don't know...a year ago? And I've only just now gotten around to writing it. Well, I wrote it a couple of weeks ago as a birthday gift, but I'm only jsut now getting around to sharing with the world. For shame! Anyway, it's a fic based on the song, '_Follow Me_' by Transit. Do go give it a listen as you read, the music very much sets the vibe of this fic!**

**Happy birthday to you, Bustedflipflop (even if this was late!):)**

—•oOo•—

"So tell me, Remy, how've you been?"

She swings toward him, crossing her legs and hooking a pitched heel in a ring on the bar stool to keep facing him.

She's so goddamn beautiful, it constricts his chest down at least two sizes too small, and it _hurts_. He still loves her so much, it's almost tragic, but he swallows it down and shrugs. Makes to shrug off her question, too, because they're _good _now, friends, and he doesn't want to fuck it all up again.

She must have seen it in his expression, because she reaches out, hand not even hesitant landing lightly on his knee. "No, _really_, shug, how've you been?" Her expression earnest, sincere, and for a change, not guarded.

Not hurt. Because he hasn't been around to do that in a while, and then when he has been, he's been _careful_.

If he'd destroyed everything else between them over the years, he at least wants their friendship back.

"Heh, I been alright, chere," he starts out, signaling the bartender for another drink. Then he looks back at her and sees the soft smile she wears as she pulls her hand back. He kicks himself, because he's already done it wrong; she doesn't want to hear him smooth over her guilt with glibness.

But he doesn't want to lay it all and kill the evening, either. _Absolutely not_.

He'd rather walk out and never see her again than heap the last handful of years at her feet.

"Don' gimme that look, chere," he chuckles, "I ain't been too bad off. Took some good jobs. Traveled the world, had me a couple of adventures. Made a shitzillion dollars, and I'm a _king_ now." He chuckles again at his reference to his recent step up to the literal throne of the Thieves Guild. "How about you, Anna Marie? How're you?"

"Well." It's her turn to shrug and look away. "It's been alright, I guess."

He nods, turns to the beer put in front of him. _Some things don't never change_, he thinks. The grass is green, the sky is blue, Rogue and Gambit hide shit from each other, and the love between them remains paralyzed.

He feels the old resentment surging up, and immediately washes it down with a swallow of beer. He's not here with her tonight to spoil for a fight. They've come a good way from the entire Antarctica shitshow a couple of years ago, they're _friends_, and since the universe doesn't give a damn that he wants more, he'll happily take the friendship she's been willing to fall back into lately.

_Friends ain't gotta tell everything, no? Let it be—_

"Remy." She pulls him out of his angst, tapping a chewed-down fingernail on her beer bottle for a moment before throwing him a wry smile. "Maybe that question wasn't fair. It's just that...I don't know…" she trails off, then shrugs. "It's just, I feel like we've gotten close lately, and I see you, and how you throw yourself here and there, and I—"

—_the fuck? Is she feelin' _sorry _for me now? _He wonders, heart stung and pride offended, and he can feel his expression darkening at her.

He supposes the indignities of having the misfortune of loving the shit out of this woman won't ever really stop.

"_Oh_, quit it, Cajun," she snorts at him, "you're gettin' all man-painy and dramatic on me over there." She turns back to her beer bottle again with another shrug. "I just care, is all." She flicks him another wry look through her lashes as she adds, "even if I _am_ a shitty ex."

"Heh, no shittier'n me, chere," he chuckles back, hackles flattening back down. "Mais yeah, I really am doin' alright. Maybe not _ideal_, but when's anything ever ideal wit' folks like us, neh?"

"Ain't that the truth, shug, kinda hard to be normal, bein' like us, supers and all that," she laughs, happy to follow his humor and breaking the tension back down to the ease they've had these past few weeks. "As they say, this is why we can't have nice things. _Thanks, Obama_."

They both crack genuine smiles at her lame, outdated joke, and turn back to their drinks to let the relatively comfortable, yet now _charged_ lull in the conversation.

_Charged_, because for the first time since they've made their way back into each other's orbit, since they've buried everything (well, ignored is probably more accurate) and truly become _friends_, that they've even remotely acknowledged this thing between them.

He's not mad about that, either, that the spark has reared its sexy head between them, though he's reluctant to try anything. He doesn't want to ruin things, and he knows she won't chase it, so here they are, and here they'll stay—

"_Oooh_, I ain't heard this one in a _while_!" Rogue interrupts his thoughts with a soft laugh and bright eyes as a song starts from the jukebox. The wistful notes in the beginning mark a song that isn't his style, though he isn't surprised that it's one hers. One doesn't spend half her life stealing others' minds without gaining an appreciation for a wide variety of everything.

'_Abroad adventure with a few close friends _

_Took an eight hour flight over the Atlantic Ocean _

_Jet lagged and lovesick for days on end_

_Wrapped up in the music, we sang and we sang'_

"I used to listen to this song a lot after…" she hesitates, flicks shameful eyes at him, then looks away. "_After_," she adds softly.

'_Follow me, follow me into the night_

_Why even ask why? Why even ask why?'_

He nods, understanding her to mean after Antarctica. His mouth and his heart tighten a little as he follows her quiet lead and listens to the lyrics.

'_Follow me, follow me just for the night_

_Why even ask why? Why don't we just try?_

_Why even ask why?'_

She'd listened to it _after_, yet to him, it sounds so much like them from _before…_

'_Met this beautiful girl, she lived to pretend _

_And joke about the future we'd never spend' _

He smiles faintly at his drink, the lyrics flashing up so many memories. The excitement, the _fun_ he'd had, meeting her on Muir Island. _Both_ times. The flight back, exhausted, mind-sore, and entirely mind_ful_ of her. And she'd been the same, alternately grouchy and shy with the looks she'd shot his direction.

'_Pulling at my heartstrings, she played and she wins_

_This is my love song, this is how it ends'_

He remembers the flirtation of the early days, the exhilaration of yanking the tiger's tail, and sometimes getting somewhere with it. He remembers the day he'd realized he wasn't playing games, but playing for keeps, and how that'd terrified him. How she'd kept him on tenterhooks with the push-pull of her own insecurities. How he'd acted like it mattered, but it didn't, because he hadn't had a thing to offer her past a good night's fun.

"I played this album basically on repeat after I got back," she speaks up, her manner easy, apparently deciding to open back up in a different route. A more direct one. "No particular reason other than 'cause it was new to me, and I liked it."

"Yeah?" He finds himself encouraging her, despite his own reluctance to pick at this particular wound. Because for him, it's still raw, and this won't end pretty. And he's so very sick of things _ending _with her.

But it's a rare moment with her like this, and he wants to _know_…

'_Follow me, follow me into the night_

_Why even ask why? Why even ask why?'_

"Yeah, heh." She looks over at him, and her smile softens to a faint curl of her mouth. "This song, though…" she trails off for a moment, then shrugs, "I bawled my eyes out to this song so many times, 'cause it reminded me of you. _Us_. _God_," she bursts out in a short laugh, "I _looked _for you. _Hoped_ you'd made it. Bargained _everything _of mine just so you'd still be alive."

"Chere, now that's a _lot_ of shit for bargainin' power," he teases, "I'd say maybe old man Death didn't stand much a chance in that match, neh?"

She laughs and tosses her curls over her shoulder. "I suppose you're right." She quietens for a moment, then continues, "I was ready to give anything just to know you were alive, and maybe happy. Even it wasn't ever with me." She throws him a self-deprecating look, "but that's been my entire gamble with you, shug. You always had it stacked in your favor, and I never knew where I stood, what cards were on the table."

'_Follow me, follow me just for the night_

_Why even ask why? Why don't we just try?_

_Why even ask why?'_

He feels a sharp tug at that admission, and no small helping of guilt. Because she's not wrong. He'd foolishly swept her up in his impulsive, heartfelt and headstrong pursuit, not prepared to offer a thing (because he hadn't had anything), and completely disregarding her fear. Tried to explain it away (to be fair, _someone _needed to, else she'd never grow, but that's beside the point).

No wonder she hadn't known what to do with him, before, during, or after.

'_Looking for love like it ever gets easy_

_Heard you were lonely enough to stay with me'_

"Chere, truth be known, I didn't really know what the hell we were doin', or where we were goin', either," he admits plainly, "all I knew is that somehow, someway, you was my endgame."

'_Go if you want to be lovesick and lonely_

_I'll be waiting on you, I'll be waiting on you'_

Her brows knit up at him, and her frustration swells. "So that's it, Cajun? That's all you were goin' off of? That's what you were thinkin', sayin' to yourself during that stupidass trial?"

He shoots her an unappreciative look, barely hiding his dislike for the conversation. She doesn't give a damn, she _loves_ the hard-headed man, and she cares, and she wants at least this friendship, but if they don't poke the beast between them...

'_You're holding your drink like it's killing you slowly _

_Holding your smile like I don't know the story'_

"Rogue, I ain't got an answer for ya, leastways, not one you seem all that inclined to hear." He cracks a smile, but it's strained, and she knows he's about ten seconds away from swerving the conversation, and possibly swerving her with more drink if she keeps at him.

She can't let that happen. She _won't_. She's fought to hard to get him to this point with her, to gain any grain of his trust back.

'_Go if you want to be lovesick and lonely_

_I'll be waiting on you, I'll be waiting on you'_

"Listen, Rems," she sighs and leans back, "I'm all kinds of inclined to hear your answers, should you actually feel like givin' 'em. But I guess if you still don't, then this shit between us ain't ever gonna clean up."

'_Diana, your history ain't much a mystery _

_Buried your worries in bruises and bedsheets'_

His expression smooths blank, and her heart caves in. He's closing off again, just like he'd tried to do in the first several weeks after he'd returned. Give him another half minute, and he'll go light-hearted and shrug it off, and then he'll split ways with her when she calls it a night, and he'll stay out later to drink and fuck around elsewhere til he passes out for sleep.

She's got him in her head, she knows how he hides. And he's only gotten better at it.

Lord help her, she _remembers _the cracked look he hadn't hidden at all when they'd first locked eyes on his return. He'd been so stiff, so cold, and he'd looked away almost immediately. She'd wanted so badly to touch him in some way, maybe absorb the hurt away, except that's not how her power works.

'_The story unfolds with the lies that you told me_

_Love is a dream; I'm waking up slowly'_

"Chere," he finally replies, his tone heartbreakingly even, "listen. I didn't come out all this way to fight, eh? Maybe let's don't ruin what we got for a minute, and just...I don' know, have fun. We were doin' that well enough before, yeah?"

'_Our long distant love turned to long distant friends_

_As I flew back home alone again'_

"Remy, _don't_," she grits out softly, willing the man back to her. She can see the agitated flash in his eyes, he means what he says in that he doesn't want to fight, but everything else is goddamned _pretend_, and he knows it. "Don't you dare lie to me right now, or to yourself. We ain't been havin' much fun, we've been havin' _some_ fun while tippy-toeing around each other on eggshells." She holds her breath, then demands, "is that all you want with me?"

He pauses, and she _sees_ it. She sees the raw, stripped-down vulnerability. She sees the hurt, she sees the heartbreak, she sees—

'_Don't talk about the future, cuz it's nothing we can spend'_

"N-no," he stutters hoarsely, his jaw hardening, then softening, his eyes doing the same. "No, this ain't how I want it wit' you at all."

She smiles a little, feels her heart thudding wildly up into her throat. Feels hope swell up, relief bubbling right up under it as she reaches for his hand curled around his drink.

"Then how do you want it, sugar? How's this gonna end?"

'_This is my love song, this is how it ends.'_

His fingers lace through hers, lightly squeezing. "Well, Anna Marie," he answers slowly with a little quirk of his sensitive mouth, a fast flash of his eyes, a light caress of his thumb over her gloved knuckles, "I do believe I jus' said you was my endgame. Always have been, always will be." He pauses, flashes her the _real_ smile, the one that softens his sharp features and crinkles the corners of his eyes. Squeezes her hand again and holds it. "C'mon, chere, what y' say we go out, where it's a bit quieter, eh? Think I had plenty to drink anyway, you?"

She nods, knowing she probably looks silly as hell, with a small, but giddy smile on her face and stars in her eyes.

Or maybe hearts rather than stars.

_Doesn't matter_, she happily decides, because she's seeing the same thing in his stunning eyes and all over his beautiful face as she follows him out into the pleasant New York City evening.

_Follow me, follow me into the night_

_Why even ask why? Why even ask why?_

_Follow me, follow me just for the night_

_Why even ask why? Why don't we just try?_

_Why even ask why?_


End file.
